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What's In A Name?
Politics is the art of getting someone to do what you want him to do by helping him understand why it's in his interest to do so. Sometimes that appeal is based on shared interests; sometimes, on pure altruism; sometimes, on greed; sometimes, on fear. But in every case, the successful political appeal is an appeal to self-interest as defined and understood by the organization or individual whose support you seek.
Surely, in the history of the world's politics, there is no finer practitioner of the art of politics than Francis Urquhart, the late Prime Minister of Britain.
What's that, you say? There never has been a Prime Minister of Britain named Urquhart -- Francis or otherwise? You're quite right, of course. We're referring to the fictional lead character of House of Cards, a political satire about the post-Thatcher succession struggle inside Britain's Conservative Party. Originally written as a novel by former Thatcher aide Michael Dobbs, then turned into a television miniseries by the BBC, House of Cards comes closer to showing one man's pursuit of power at its venal finest than any fictionalized account of politics since Macbeth. Urquhart -- played to perfection by Ian Richardson -- schemes, dupes, cajoles, seduces, blackmails, extorts, and eventually even murders his way into No. 10 Downing Street in such an awe-inspiring display of cunning and ruthlessness that you find you can't help but root for this most evil of men.
The series, which debuted in Britain less than a week before the fall of the Thatcher government, proved so popular that the BBC produced two more installments of the miniseries to meet the public demand to document the continuing story. In To Play the King, the second installment, Urquhart -- at first reluctantly, and later enthusiastically -- takes on and destroys the monarch who challenges his authority over Britain; in The Final Cut -- the third and final installment of the series -- Urquhart and his wife plot to secure their financial future and his place in history.
It is reported that when the BBC approached Richardson to play Urquhart in the final installment, he originally demurred, fearing that Urquhart's success could be construed as an endorsement of evil. Only after it was made clear to him that Urquhart would, in the end, suffer death did Richardson agree to play the role one final time.
As to whether it is inappropriate for a communications consulting firm to take as its namesake one of the most malevolent characters in the history of politics... you might think that. We couldn't possibly comment.
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